Japanese-Americans, especially those on the West Coast, were interned by the US during the war, presumably because it was thought they would spy for the Japanese and/or give aid to Japanese forces if they landed in California.
Why wasn’t the same reasoning applied to German (or Italian) Americans on the East Coast? The whole internment policy was excessive anyway but it seems particularly hard that only Japanese-Americans were singled out like this.
Too many of them.
Much more integrated into society.
Not as easily identified.
Been here much longer.
Not seen as a threat.
Racism.
Germans and Italians are white, that’s why. Plus, Germans are the largest ethnic group in the country so interning them would have been next to impossible. Better to lock up people who have much smaller numbers and don’t even look American, like those patriotic European Americans who also happen to have representatives in Congress. The internment policy didn’t have any logic but racism behind it.
An interesting fact is that the Japanese population of Hawaii were not interned, other than a few hundred, even though Hawaii was the place attacked by Japan. The Japanese made up 35% of the territorie’s population and too important to the island’s economy.
Note that German-Americans had it much worse during World War I than during World War II. There still weren’t German internment camps, but there were many incidents of people being singled out for vigilante intimidation and violence because they were of German ancestry.
It wasn’t just vigilantism, either. The Wilson administration encouraged a lot of public rah-rahing, and may have had more power than any President past or since. A big part of that was various “security” measures against its enemies, foreign and domestic.
Don’t expect widespread rational behavior during war time.
Also, the political cartooning around the Japanese showed the Japanese soldiers along with the Japanese officials in a bad light. They were all sneaky. They bombed Pearl Harbor, too.
Cartoons around the Germans focused on the leaders. They were invading their neighbors, but there was no immediate correlation of ‘the German’s sneak attacked’ some beautiful military base.
Racism.
Some Germans and Italians were detained, mainly first generation or those who were suspected to have close ties to the German-American Bund. I think Pete Domenici’s mother, who was Italian, was detained.
I almost forgot to mention: I know from here it seems like WW1 and WW2 were right next to each other, but for the United States they were seperated by more than two decades. Not many people fought in both, and most of those were officers. I’ve seen indications that attitudes toward germans changed a lot in those years. Beforehand, they were still “the other”. Afterwards, like the Irish, they were considered “normal” Americans.
I remember a History Channel program (American Nazis or something?) that mentioned this. Unless you were, as joe mentioned, 1st-gen or affiliated with the Bund, you were usually okay. Still,11k in America and 4.5 from Latin America were detained, compared to over 150k Japanese.
I think it has to be noted that, though from our perspective it looks like racism, government actions against Germans during WWI and Japanese during WWII were overreactions to a reasonable, logically valid concern: there were Americans of that ethnic extraction, in both cases, who were supportive of their former homeland’s government with which we were now at awar, and hence were “persons of concern” in the modern euphemism – people likely to engage in espionage, sabotage, etc. That this group constituted an extremely small minority among Americans of that ethnic extraction means that interning and prejudice were overreactions – but they were not unthinking racism; they were founded in a legitimate concern about a small minority of people of that ethnic extraction.
This is true in the abstract, but not in the particular. The proof is the difference in the way the Japanese and the Germans were treated. German suspects were picked out of the much larger body of ethnics. Ever measure taken against the Japanese failed to differentiate among suspects and innocents. All the reading I’ve done makes it clear that pure racism was the basis for the overreaction against that one particular group. And it was racism that emanated from the highest levels of federal and state governments, not an arbitrary mob pile on.
Unthinking is a poor term. Thinking was most definitely the key. It’s just that those thoughts are unthinkable and abhorrent today.
Also, Koreans were detained along with the Japanese since, due to the Occupation, Koreans would have immigrated under Japanese passports and there wasn’t much of an effort to differentiate. It’s pretty absurd since it’s not like Koreans were going to have any love for the Japanese Empire.
I don’t think that this is true. Here’s an interesting message on the topic.
Sure, there was an element of racism in the assumption that Japanese-American were more loyal to their former homeland than German-Americans. But the military situation WRT Japan vs. Germany was different.
We were “at war” with Germany, but we were attacked by Japan. Before Pearl Harbor, we had underestimated the capablilties and audacity of the Japanese fleet; afterwards, we overreacted, assuming that an invasion of the West Coast was imminent.
But there was little corresponding fear of a German invasion of the East Coast. By 1942 the smallish German navy was already on the ropes, and their army was heavily engaged in Russia and elsewhere. Any realistic threat from that quarter was years away.
Actually, all Citizens of Axis nations were interned. This was standard practice for that time, and occurred in just about all nations at war. It was assumed that if you are a Citizen, you are loyal to that nation. This also protected you from mob action.
Now, American Citizens of Japanese birth or even heritage were also interned, this was more or less pure racism. It did serve to protect them also, of course.
If the USA had just interned Citizens of Axis nations, there wouldn’t have been an issue.
I can’t find a cite that says otherwise. I heard it from a Korean-American years ago. Dude was born well after the war and had a bit of a persecution complex about being an American born Korean. I took his word for it and still suspect its true, but I can’t back it up.
The Japanese were also held in Canada as well. In fact Germans were held in Canada during WWI and WWII. Ukrainians were held during WWI as well.
Most of it was political, you simply had too many Germans to put them all into a camp. About 120,000 Japanese of which 60% were US citizens (about half nationalize, half born), resided in areas of the US making them eligible to be relocated.
About 10,000 German Immigrants were also held in internment camps. An estimated German immigrant population (on the East coast) would’ve been close to 5 million at the time of WWII, would’ve been eligible to be relocated if the same standards applied. Five million versus 120,000…Well go figure. (that’s immediate immigration form the last few decades, not people with German decent who make up many millions more. Germans are the large plurality of immigrants to America)
Japanese were not held by and by in Hawaii, 'cause it was far too isolated and not worth. Remember air travel was very uncommon, so it wasn’t worth anything to inter Japanese in Hawaii, since they were isolated. The idea was not to use Japanese for cheap labor(though they certainly were used that way), it was to prevent sabotage or collusion
Rationalization could be found simply by the fact Japan attacked us, Germany didn’t. (At least till after the declaration of war). Also Japan occupied several islands of Alaska, Germany didn’t come close to getting any land
Japan was viewed more as a danger to the US than Germany. Churchill was always making sure the main focus of the war effort for the USA was Europe not the Pacific.
Enemy aliens were held in most countries. Enemy doesn’t mean they individually did something, it means they belonged to the ethnic group of an enemy.
We view this as horrible today but historically it’s always been done, even today it’s practiced in a watered down form. For instance, Israeli Arabs don’t serve in Isreal’s military
Internment in camps is less common too. For instance, during the war in Canada, Germans and Japanese were held (and during WWI as well) but at first they were simply required to register. For instance, they were given a card, each month anyone in Canada classed as belonging to such a group would have to go to his local JP or even Postmaster and have his card stamped. This proved he was where he said he was. If he missed this “checking in” he was shipped to a camp.
A lot of misinformation is spread with the internment, of course that doesn’t take away from the fact some people did have their rights violated.
But you have to view it from a historical viewpoint to understand it.
For instance during WWI it there was a mass change of names with people named Braun and such chaning their name to Brown, to make darn well sure eveyone knew who’s side they were on. In NYC there were special courts that helped that process for immigrants.
Can you see anyone doing that now? The Southern USA is the only part of the United States that was involved in a “true” total war. The North during the Civil War and WWII came close to being “total” but even then, the USA was only at a small fraction of it’s total capacity.
As I said I’m not trying to minimize anything here, just saying you need to look at this from a historical persepective.
Likewise in Canada, “enemy aliens” were rounded up at the start of WW2: Italian and German (male) nationals were picked up by the RCMP. The Japanese-Canadians had a similar experience to those in the USA, beginning in 1942. In their case, the whole family, not just the adult males, were interned (and their homes, businesses, fishing boats, etc. sold off cheaply to defray expenses).
On another note entirely, one of my favourite Onion headlines of all time is “San Fransico Grocer Henry Nakamura Chief Suspect in Pearl Harbor Bombing. ‘I am Loyal American Citizen,’ Scheming Jap Declares.” That and “Ladies, Negroes Momentarily Useful.”